George Murphy

Community Service

He was publisher of the Manteca Bulletin for 28 years. Murphy took an active role in all phases of the newspaper from writing editorials to setting type. He was considered one of the last “one man newspaper” shops in California when he retired in 1972. He served as president of the California Newspaper Publishers Association, was a Manteca School District trustee, and was named in 1949 as Manteca’s Outstanding Young Man. He belonged to numerous civic clubs and organizations and was past president of the Manteca Chamber of Commerce, and past commander of McFall Grisham Post American Legion. He also survived the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Murphv won numerous state and national awards for his writing. In 1950, he was nominated for the highest honor in newspapers — the Pulitzer Prize — for one of his “Batting the Breeze” columns. It dealt with Korean War servicemen interspersed with remembrances of his own from World War II.

He died in 1991.